


Born to Die

by eternaleponine



Series: Ghosts That We Knew [22]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Deleted Scene, Gen, Mentions of attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 06:32:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1847974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate version of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/951779/chapters/2211288">Chapter 19</a> of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/951779/chapters/1861493">Time for a Sign</a>, from Loki's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Born to Die

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FreeNatShep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreeNatShep/gifts).



_I don't belong here,_ Loki thought, not for the first time. He watched the man who wasn't his father laugh with the men who weren't his uncles, cousins, whatever they were. Sometimes it was hard to keep track of who was actually a blood relative and who was just a family friend who had been adopted into the family somewhere along the way.

But none of them were his blood relatives. Not a single one. Somewhere out there there were at least two people who shared his blood, though, and he wondered where they were, and who they were, and if they were wondering the same about him. 

He saw his brother – no, not his brother, Thor, just Thor – peel away from the group of cousin-friends (really, it had been the same group at this Christmas Eve party for their entire lives, but he knew they weren't all actually family; it just felt like it, or it used to, but he'd never _really_ felt like he belonged, had he?) he'd been talking to and duck into the hall where it was quieter, his phone pressed to his ear and his fingers stuffed into the opposite ear to drown out the noise.

Loki almost got up and followed him to see what was going on, but in the end he didn't bother. He just stayed in the corner he'd staked out, where he could watch what was going on without anyone really bothering him. He was sure that it didn't have anything to do with him.

And then someone actually approached him and started to ask him about what show the school was doing this year, and he forgot all about Thor... until his older brother's hand closed around his upper arm, holding on too hard. Loki grimaced and carefully extricated himself from Thor's grip. "May I help you?" he said, a hint of ice in his voice.

"We need to go. _Now._ "

Of course. The minute someone expressed any interest at all in anything having to do with Loki, suddenly there was an emergency that needed to be attended to. Because heaven forbid anyone pay any attention to him, ever. People accused him of being resentful of living in Thor's shadow all of the time, but what was he supposed to do when Thor went out of his way to cast it whenever Loki found a bit of light?

"What? Why?"

"We just need to go," Thor said. "Come on."

"Mother—"

"Already knows. So does Dad. We need to go, Loki." Thor thrust his jacket and scarf into his hands. "Now," he repeated. 

Loki draped the scarf around his neck and shrugged into the coat, buttoning it as they made their way through the crowd, which was much easier in Thor's wake than it would have been if he had been attempting it on his own. Thor could just barrel through and people made way. Loki had had to learn to slip through the spaces in between people.

He had a lifetime of learning just exactly how to fall through the cracks, so to speak.

Once they were in the car (and how were their – no, Thor's – parents going to get home if they'd taken the car?) Thor looked at him. "We're going to the hospital," he said, twisting the key in the ignition and putting the car into gear. "Bruce was in an accident or something, and he's not doing well. Steve called to let us know that we should get there as soon as we can."

Loki wanted to ask what that had to do with them, or what it had to do with him, but he already knew the answer that Thor would give: He's our friend. We need to be there.

And if Loki tried to explain that those people were not his friends, that as soon as he realized that he wasn't actually required to participate in their little weekly pity party or whatever it was supposed to be, he'd walked out and had no plans of returning, it wouldn't sway Thor in the slightest. Nothing he said ever did.

So he just fastened his seatbelt and leaned back against the seat, staring out the window as they drove.

It was a long drive. Over an hour, even at the speeds that Thor was driving, which were definitely not legal, but which were just under the threshold that was likely to draw immediate attention... which surprised Loki, but then he supposed that that would be the sort of attention – the _only_ sort of attention – that Thor would want to avoid. Even if there was a very good chance that he would be able to charm his way out of it.

When they arrived at the hospital it took a few minutes for them to figure out how to get from the parking garage to the emergency department. Thor approached the reception desk, and after a few minutes they were told that Bruce had been admitted and that he was not able to have visitors, but that they could go up to another waiting room, where the rest of their friends were waiting.

Thor thanked the nurse and they found and elevator to take them upstairs. As soon as they found the waiting room, Thor asked if they'd had any news, and his voice bounced back off the concrete walls, too loud in the small space. Loki didn't bother listening for an answer, he just sat down and picked up the remote that was laying abandoned on the coffee table strewn with old magazines, and began flipping through the channels, looking for something to watch because from the looks of things they wouldn't be leaving any time soon, and the last thing he wanted was to have any of these people try to talk to him.

He finally settled on some old movie, but even in the quiet that settled over them, he couldn't concentrate on the words coming out of the actors' mouths. So he just started making up his own story to go with the actions on screen, an old game that he didn't remember a time he hadn't played, and once upon a time Thor had played along. He glanced over at his brother now, but Thor was talking quietly to Steve and not paying any attention.

More people arrived – Jessica, then Carol – and the latter finally asked the question that had been on the tips of most of their tongues all night. "Okay... so... what happened?"

Everyone looked at Tony, who said nothing. He seemed far more interested in his phone, except he wasn't actually _doing_ anything with it, just staring at the screen. "He was supposed to come over," he said. "He didn't show up. Again."

And then he continued, telling them how Bruce was supposed to come over but he hadn't showed up, so Tony had gone to find him, see if he needed a ride because his father wouldn't let him use the car or something, and how at first he hadn't thought anyone was there but he'd seen a light, so he'd gone to check on Bruce, but there'd been no answer. So he'd tried the door, found it wasn't locked, and that's when he found him.

"Found him?" Carol asked.

"Passed out on the bathroom floor," Tony said. "He'd taken... I don't know what he'd taken. A lot of stuff. I called the ambulance and... now we're here. And he'd better wake up soon, because when he does, I'm going to kill him." 

Loki snorted. He didn't mean to, exactly, but he couldn't really help it. Didn't anyone else see that it was just a little bit funny (funny ironic, not funny ha-ha) that Tony was threatening to kill the person who'd tried to kill himself, _because_ he'd tried to kill himself?

"Because it's complete bullshit," Tony said. "You can't just do that. You can't just decide that you want to end it all. You don't get to do that. It's stupid, and selfish, and there's nothing - _nothing_ \- that can be that bad that you just want to end it all. _Nothing._ "

Loki said nothing. It was easy for Tony to say that, when he'd never had to struggle in his life, when he'd always just had everything handed to him, and he had all the attention he could ever need or desire without having to ask for it, just by virtue of his name. When had he ever had to question anything, or everything? When had he ever suffered? What did he know about darkness?

But if he said any of those things, they would all turn on him, and it would be Loki the Drama Queen, making everything all about him again, like he always did, and didn't he know that there were people with _real_ problems and couldn't he see that his life was _perfect_ and why couldn't he just get over it already?

In the end, he didn't have to, because Natasha said it for him. 

"It is easy for you to say this," she said softly. "It is easy for you, who has everything, to say there is nothing so bad that death seems like only answer. Easy for you to get angry, because you do not understand." 

"Natasha," Clint whispered, maybe to try to shut her up, but she shook her head and continued.

"You are lucky. I wish all of you are so lucky that you cannot understand why he would do this. I wish all of you are so lucky you do not _ever_ understand that there are places that you can go, places you can be taken, that are so dark, where you are so lost, that you cannot see any other way. But that does not mean that they do not exist."

"Who are you to tell me that I'm lucky?" Tony demanded. "Who are you to say that I have everything? I lost my mother, and my father doesn't give a shit about me and would rather just send me off somewhere but I refuse to go, and—"

"You lost your mother, yes," Natasha said, and her voice and the way she looked at Tony sent an involuntary shiver down Loki's spine, because her tone was ice and steel, and hinted at blood. "You do not have as much of your father as you want. This is sad, yes, but this is not everything. You still have money, you still have your things to build, you still have your mind. You still have friends. And yes, Bruce also has friends," she added before Tony could interrupt. "But sometimes... sometimes you cannot see these things you still have. Sometimes it is too dark to see anything but the moment you are in, the moment you think will never end, and it consumes you and you cannot think of how you are getting out except to end everything."

"How do you know?" Tony demanded. "You don't know what it's like to be him. You don't know what he's going through."

"No," Natasha agreed. "This I do not know." 

For a second, Loki thought that would be the end of it, that somehow Tony would still manage to win the argument. That Natasha had given up, given in, her head down.

Then she looked up again, and everyone in the room froze at the look she gave Tony. Cold, colder even than her voice, and dead. Or haunted. "But I know what it is like to want to die."

It was as if someone pressed the pause button on the scene. For a second, time stopped. No one moved, and there was no sound. They all just stared, until finally Clint broke the silence, looking at her, almost pleading as he said, "You don't have to," but she shook her head.

"It is possible to lose, or think you have lost, everything," Natasha said. "It is possible even to lose yourself, and then... then what is point of living? If even your body, even your life is not your own... why? Why keep going?" 

And Loki knew how that felt, although he was absolutely certain that she wasn't talking about the same thing. And he realized then how little they knew about her. They knew she came from Russia, that she lived – had lived – with her uncle but now she lived with Mr. Fury, and something bad had happened that had caused her to be put into foster care. But the details were anyone's guess, except maybe Clint's.

But still, he knew, or at least he had an idea, what it was like to think you had lost everything, to lose even your own sense of identity. After all, he'd spent his whole life believing that his parents were his parents, his brother was his brother, and then they'd pulled the rug out from underneath him... or he'd pulled it out from underneath himself, he supposed, finding the file that held his adoption paperwork.

But they hadn't hidden it very well, had they? Maybe they wanted him to find it. Maybe they wanted the lie to end, because they were tired of keeping the secret. And why had they kept it in the first place? Did they think that they could just go his entire life with him never knowing? A part of him had always known, had always sensed that he didn't fit, he didn't belong, and that part was relieved to know that really, there was a reason for that, and he wasn't crazy.

Tangled in his own thoughts, it took Loki a moment to realize that Natasha was still talking. "... kill myself. I just think, 'I do not care if I live anymore.' So I go outside at night, in winter. No jacket, no gloves. Nothing. I just go out and decide I will not go back."

And then she stopped, and Loki looked at her, looked at the way she held herself, back straight, jaw clenched, like she expected a fight... or maybe she was already fighting, it was just that no one else could see the demons that she wrestled with. 

Steve's voice was low, less sure than they were used to him being. "What made you change your mind?" 

Her body answered before she said a word. She looked at Clint, and smiled, just a little. She took his hand, squeezed it tight enough that it looked like it had to hurt, but Clint didn't wince. He didn't really react at all, but then none of this was new to him like it was to the rest of them. 

"I did not change my mind exactly," she said. "I lose a fight." 

And Clint had the scar to prove it, she showed them. She'd scratched his face, fighting him for her own life, because she wanted to give up and he wouldn't let her. He'd won, obviously.

"He wants to me to live, and he will not let me go. And then I am too tired to fight anymore, so I give in to life instead of death. I cannot do it alone anymore, so I let him in... and we find another way." She shrugged, looking at all of them, but most of them didn't, or couldn't, look back. It was like her words had rendered them statues, silent and unmoving. "This is what we will do for Bruce, when he wakes up."

" _If_ he wakes up," Loki said, because someone had to be the voice of reality. Bruce might not wake up, and they couldn't just delude themselves into thinking that everything would be okay. It wasn't that easy. It was never that easy.

" _When_ ," Thor said, glaring at him, and Loki sighed and shut up, because obviously no one was interested in hearing his opinions. He wasn't even sure why he was here. These weren't his friends; they could hardly stand him, and he knew it.

But Thor had told him they had to go, and he'd gone. Why? Why did he still follow his brother, who wasn't even his brother? Why did he still try to convince himself, still try to believe, that there was some kind of connection there? Why did he still want to believe, deep down, that if something happened to him, that if things got really bad, so bad that suicide started seeming like the answer, that his brother – no, _not_ his brother – would care enough to stop him?

Quiet descended over the group, each of them left in their own little bubble (except Natasha and Clint, who had disappeared) to think about what they had just heard, or about something else, or nothing at all if they could manage it. 

Loki couldn't. All he could think about was the number of times that the thought had gone through his head, even before he'd known he was adopted, because he'd never really felt like he fit in, that if he disappeared, if he just ceased to exist, that his parents – adoptive parents – would somehow then see his real worth and they would regret all of the times that they'd put Thor ahead of him. They would suddenly see the error of their ways, and they would want to apologize, to beg his forgiveness, but it would be too late. He would be gone.

But never, at any point, had he actually _really_ thought about killing himself. Disappearing didn't mean death. Not that he was thinking about running away (although that thought had certainly crossed his mind more than once) because he could still be found. He just wanted to actually disappear – poof – into thin air, never to be found again... but somehow he would still be able to see what was happening, see their grief. These imaginary scenarios had never included a funeral.

Lost in his thoughts, Loki didn't hear Thor approach until he had dropped into the seat beside him. Even though he wasn't touching him, his presence had a weight that pushed into Loki's space and made him feel crowded. He shifted, not subtly, to accommodate. "What?"

"I can take you home if you want," Thor offered. "You don't have to stay."

Loki looked at him, searching for the trap in the words, but that wasn't Thor's style. He was all wide-eyed honesty, the golden child who said things and meant them, who didn't have a deceptive bone in his body. 

"Are you staying?" Loki asked. It wasn't as if Thor had been great friends with Bruce. None of them had, really, except Tony, or at least that was the feeling that Loki got. But now all of a sudden everyone cared _so much_ and maybe it was fake or maybe...

Maybe he didn't know.

"I want to be here," Thor said. "I want to know what happens. I want to help if I can."

Loki fought back a sneer. Of course. His brother, always so helpful. And if there was any way to help, he would find it. But there wasn't. They were all just sitting and waiting to see whether Bruce would live or die... and even if he lived, it wasn't a guarantee that he wouldn't have some sort of permanent damage. 

"I'll stay," Loki said, because he wasn't going to let his brother outshine him again. 

Thor smiled. "I knew you'd say that." And he pulled Loki into a tight hug that even if he'd wanted to escape it he couldn't have. 

And if he was being honest – if he was being _absolutely_ honest with himself for once – Loki didn't want to. So he hugged his brother – Thor – his brother – back.


End file.
